Guild Wars 2

NathanH.1465:

Necro:
-snip-
Overall: Necros have good hp (and DS) and pets can be nice. They also have good access to condition and condition removal.
The problem is that the very bad AI makes pets mostly unusable especially since they tend to die easily under AoE leaving the necro weak and vulnerable a bit too easy.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I’m fighting (with my MM build) and that my minions are not attacking (especially true for flesh golem) and if they start to attack they tend to run towards the AoE stuff, killing them fast and easy.
Necros can only defend themself by attacking, but nothing else (yet, they have no stability). With no real defense and useless pets their hp (and DS) is being drained way too easily. They also need to have a look taken at the blood line working together with DS.

I agree with all these points. Minions really are a problem, and they deserve to be looked at. And pets for rangers are also a problem, for slightly similar reasons.

Harper.4173:

Bri.8354:

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

They don’t balance PVE. Anyone can win in PVE. With anything.
The balance in that aspect of the game is very loose at best.

That doesn’t mean you don’t balance it. You can win with anything, but there’s obviously the optimal things to win with. If you don’t balance that, it goes out of control and everyone just uses one build, which makes the game rather boring.

Well then it’s a good thing we don’t just use one build then and that PvE balance is mostly pretty good.

If rangers had healing signet, they’d have nerfed it by 30% instead of 8% and buffed the heal up 3k…

I gave up on anet’s ability to fix this game (rangers especially). Most of the stuff they said in the CDI made no sense whatsoever. They prove time after time they don’t know the basic mechanics of their own game. Honestly, I’d stop worrying about it because nothing will get done about it anyways.

They have a balance patch every 6-7 months for god’s sakes. What other game waits so long when you have many, many people on the forums telling anet what is wrong and giving NUMEROUS suggestion on how to change it.

So… yeah. That’s just my thoughts on this whole thing. (Just do me a favor and don’t tell me to quit the game, I still like it, its just frustrating that they can’t fix anything after so long. It’s literally been 2 years and there has been practically no new content other than the odd face, hair, healing skill, and a few other odds and ends…)

Also, does anyone else realize that the only thing anet does in any sort of timely manner is fix the bugs that threaten the games economy?

Nothing is done about actual classes, but when some new thing pops up that makes players a ton of gold, anet nerfs it… I know the reason behind this, obviously they want to make more money from players buying gold, but I thought that this game wasn’t supposed to be pay to win…

Also, they remove any negative feedback they get. This is the most irritating thing. In ends up slowly building up more and more and they don’t seem to realize that either.

Whatever.

Josh Davis.6015:

To get started, we’d like to ask a few open-ended questions to all of you. In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite? And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

Imo Necromancer should be:

Strengths:
Outlasts opponents; hard to kill
Spreads lots of “debuff” conditions like Chill
Option to spec as a support or bunker with Blood Magic
Hard to run from if you get in range

Weaknesses:
Slower than most
High cooldown escape skills
Only average/low damage
Little to no spike damage

What I think Necro is like in reality atm:

Strengths:
High condition damage in PvP
Incredible Condition “covering” capability
Great in WvW Zergs due to Life Force from deaths

Weaknesses:
Slow.
No escape skills at all. You just win or die.
Bad in long fights, you can’t heal your massive healthpool effectively.
Lacking in active defenses.
You bring almost nothing to the table in PvE, Control abilities and Condition damage are not very valued and Warriors do Power builds way better than a Necro does.
No cleave.
No 1200 range Power Weapon.

Kryptonite:
Crowd Control.
Necromancer is slow and has almost no Vigor, Stability and escape skills.
In addition most of their Condition removal is on long cooldowns, designed for removing or transferring massive stacks, not for a single 30 sec Cripple or Chill.

These things combined mean that if your Plague is on Cooldown you will get used as a ping pong ball until you die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vBfY9TQE4

I think this video sums up everything wrong with warrior tankiness and mobility.

This guy seems to make a lot of sense:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Here are some important questions for the developers:

1) WvWvW skill balance
- Why is WvWvW treated like pve for several skills?
- Why is revealed 3 s in WvWvW, even though stealth is obviously much more powerful in WvWvW than in spvp/tpvp?
- WvWvW meta aka Guardian Warrior Elementalist Necro (GWEN) or hammer warrior + staff guardian melee train has been the same since Autumn 2012. Any chances to shake things up? I consider this as the one of the most important reasons why many competitive hard core WvWvW players quit this game. “Hammer stun, blast water fields, double dodge left, stability, lines of warding, veils, strip boons, hit their backline now…” commander talk remains the same already for soon 2 years in this game. Thieves are most common roamers and enemy flank gankers in zerg fights. What do the developers see as the role of rangers and engineers?

2) PvE skill balance
- Just like in WvWvW certain professions are overly represented in dungeon runs, while some others are generally not wanted.
- most CC skills are useless in boss fights due unshakeable and defiant, single target CC is generally waste of time against normal mobs
- total armor is not important due very slow attack speed of bosses, making the fights all about well timed dodging/evade and berserker gear is still prevalent
- What about reducing the damage per attack, but increasing the attack rate of pve monsters? (while keeping the total dps roughly same, this would probably lead to more varied builds)
- Will the balance patches continue to revolve around spvp/tpvp ?

I would like to point out a serious mistake in many people’s replies. Warrior has the best in combat and out of combat mobility in this game, if you just build for it. Merely equipping a greatsword (no traits or utilities invested) allows warrior to outrun most professions. Combine with sword/warhorn or hammer (earthshaker is 600 leap), bull’s charge, dogged march, mobile strikes, signet of rage for another on demand swiftness (besides warhorn), signet of stamina and/or berserker’s stance, balanced stance and endure pain. After thieves warrior is the 2nd most common roaming profession in WvWvW. Mobility is king in roaming.

I also do not agree that warrior has low condition removal compared to other professions. Cleansing ire + warhorn + signet of stamina + “shake it off” + signet of rage (with 6x Lyssa runes) = massive amount of condition removal, especially if traited. Cleansing ire alone combined with longbow allows more condition removal than most other professions can achieve in long term without the use of any runes, sigils or utility slots. Mesmers, engineers and rangers are the professions, which currently struggle against conditions.

Harper.4173:

stuff n stuff

I was here from the very beginning, and punishing is not the same thing as challenging or engaging. Just because the dungeons are difficult for thou’s who a new to them, doesn’t make them engaging mechanically.
And so what if you can clear them faster, just because have somebody bring a relfect or stack might, doesn’t make it any more engaging or fun to do it.
Oh I used a blast finisher in a fire field, how bloody exiting.

When anything goes, everything matters less.

-
As to WvW again, yeah I would agree the WvW map is crap design across the board, and it simply isn’t designed to house so many players in any constructive way.

But your ability to do basic math is questionable. If you have a set number of players, say 50, currently 100% of them are DPS to some degree, there is no other viable alternative.
But if you had equally powerful roles say just tanking and healing for now, thou if we look back at GW1 there were far more then just these three roles, but I digress.
You wouldn’t have 50 DPS with 50 tanks with 50 healers, you would have by definition fewer DPS, such as 30 DPS 10 tanks and 10 healers, or whatever it happens to be.

But you certainly wouldn’t have more DPS, since you are already at 100%.

And while having more people is always going to have an advantage numerically, there should be a greater skill gap between unorganized zergs and well organized groups.
Precisely because you can get away with lazy tactics like fire fields and water fields, which are about as engaging as a wet sponge.

Currently there is no problem that can’t be solved with overwhelming numbers, part of that is due to the poor design of WvW, and part of that is because your not really given any other options.

-
I remember times in GW1 where I could tank the entire enemy team of 8 or so, as an Ele no less, while my team could capture the objectives. Because it was possible to leverage the odds if your built yourself right. And the odds you can leverage here is much, much less. Putting you in the situation that if you want to accomplish any goal, you simply need more people, tactics and strategy be kitten ed.

Everything is effectively built of 1-on-1 fights, up to about 5 people or so, because Arenanet though they could make an e-sport. Never mind that it doesn’t scale well, at all.

Harper.4173:

How is HS still a problem? it’s already been nerfed. Do you want it to go back to the pre-buff days of 200 hp/s?
When we had no sustain?

There are numbers above 200 but lower than what it is at now, you know…

So, do folks feel Warriors would have condition counters more proportionate to the trait cost if Cleansing Ire cleared only one condition regardless of adrenaline ranks when a burst skill is used?

So it would read like~

“Cleansing Ire: Using a burst skill removes 1 condition.”

Nike.2631:

So, do folks feel Warriors would have condition counters more proportionate to the trait cost if Cleansing Ire cleared only one condition regardless of adrenaline ranks when a burst skill is used?

So it would read like~

“Cleansing Ire: Using a burst skill removes 1 condition.”

I’d say leave it as it is now, but give it a good ICD to bring it in line with other active cleanses. It’s not exactly a passive trait, (at least, that part isn’t) so why treat it as such?

ElE:
Other MAIN weaknesses they don’t want to admit.
-RANGE <= why you Always forget to mention that?
-mobility was really hit too much you should do something about
-SHORT stability on long CD
-lack of versatility (whatever we want to do we need to go full on that side except for PvP due to the silly pvp design).
-What do we get in Exchange for the high level skillfloor?
-chill and cc conditions

Thief and warriors:
Anet opinion is the opposite of most players opinion since release.
Expecially for WWW.

Seems anet doesn’t balance PvE, WWW, 1vs1, deathmatches…..but only capture points in pvp maps.

Byron, not everyone thinks 1v1 is a valid game format. For example, the devs don’t seem to. Elementalists are very mobile, very versatile and quite integral to group play, bringing some effects other classes flat out lack entirely. Best siege clearing, swiftness stacking in freely multipliable, FGS and Ice Bow.

Yes, it’s a pigeonhole role. But it works for the time being, comparing classes which lack such identifying effects.

Ofc, I do agree Elementalists are tricky to play. You got a ton of CDs to track in your head, on top of having to supply a lot of rather important utility to the team.
But they pay off. Elementalists are usually one of the classes causing groups – either PvE or WvW – to “call it”, because they have too few of them.

And I agree it’s a problem that balance isn’t based around PvE or WvW. OTOH, it’s very good that it isn’t based around 1v1 or raw kill speed because that’d be a terrible balance base for a RPG.

All of this was just so vague. And they didnt even comment on the concrete state of affairs just some ‘like it should generally be’. I’d have loved had they adressed some points like Necros Engis and Rangers being rather useless in dungeons or Skyhammer balance.

I especially ‘like’ the justification for some design choices. Like the elementalist’s low health…so we can give them more support…yet the ele doesn’t have more support, they just have more variety in their support. The warrior and thief comments are the same. In fact, it’s funny how they use the thief as an example for being squishy when they have the best evade mechanic in the game and still have medium health and armor!

It really shows that Anet’s reality and actual reality are 2 entirely different things. Anet simply recognizing that would do a lot for actually fixing this game.

Pride.1734:

All of this was just so vague. And they didnt even comment on the concrete state of affairs just some ‘like it should generally be’. I’d have loved had they adressed some points like Necros Engis and Rangers being rather useless in dungeons or Skyhammer balance.

To be fair, it was about design philosophy

The annoying part was more that some ideas don’t explain the situation we have ingame. Now ofc, if the philosophy given is the target, that’s all fine and well. What they describe for Warriors could very well be a very balanced setup, if the game is actually changed to have Warriors work that way (weak to conditions, stuck if out of adrenaline, etc).

AsmallChicken.9634:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vBfY9TQE4

I think this video sums up everything wrong with warrior tankiness and mobility.

good video

Carighan.6758:

Byron, not everyone thinks 1v1 is a valid game format.

balancing 1vs1 is the key to balance multiple formats also.
Its way better than balancing around a silly concept like capture the point.

….

for the rest don t think your view on balance is reliable after it have been proved wrong even by anet in the celestial accident and in other changes.

Every time, you want to defend things extremely unbalanced and they get changed.

Ele mobility is a matter of sustained mobility and burst mobility, also the purpose.
One is viable in PvP, none is in WWW and PvE.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

Bri.8354:

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

They don’t balance PVE. Anyone can win in PVE. With anything.
The balance in that aspect of the game is very loose at best.

That doesn’t mean you don’t balance it. You can win with anything, but there’s obviously the optimal things to win with. If you don’t balance that, it goes out of control and everyone just uses one build, which makes the game rather boring.

That’s what happens no matter how much you balance. It’s called creating and playing a meta.
Playing the same thing over and over because it’s the best. It appears not because the game isn’t balanced but because players want rewards quickly.

Harper.4173:

That’s what happens no matter how much you balance. It’s called creating and playing a meta.
Playing the same thing over and over because it’s the best. It appears not because the game isn’t balanced but because players want rewards quickly.

As an addendum to that:
Good balance doesn’t try to prevent this meta (at least not in MMO games) but rather embraces it and then keeps it in flux. So long as people can only temporarily settle into a specific memorized pattern before they have to re-learn it, all is well for the most part.

Ofc, it can get more complex if you look at games such as Starcraft II (intentional per-unit imbalance to create overall balance, sort-of where WvW would need to orient it’s design philosophy) or Fighting Games (close-balance but accept there’s always going to be top and bottom in 1v1).

Yoh.8469:

Harper.4173:

stuff n stuff

I was here from the very beginning, and punishing is not the same thing as challenging or engaging. Just because the dungeons are difficult for thou’s who a new to them, doesn’t make them engaging mechanically.
And so what if you can clear them faster, just because have somebody bring a relfect or stack might, doesn’t make it any more engaging or fun to do it.
Oh I used a blast finisher in a fire field, how bloody exiting.

When anything goes, everything matters less.

-
As to WvW again, yeah I would agree the WvW map is crap design across the board, and it simply isn’t designed to house so many players in any constructive way.

But your ability to do basic math is questionable. If you have a set number of players, say 50, currently 100% of them are DPS to some degree, there is no other viable alternative.
But if you had equally powerful roles say just tanking and healing for now, thou if we look back at GW1 there were far more then just these three roles, but I digress.
You wouldn’t have 50 DPS with 50 tanks with 50 healers, you would have by definition fewer DPS, such as 30 DPS 10 tanks and 10 healers, or whatever it happens to be.

But you certainly wouldn’t have more DPS, since you are already at 100%.

And while having more people is always going to have an advantage numerically, there should be a greater skill gap between unorganized zergs and well organized groups.
Precisely because you can get away with lazy tactics like fire fields and water fields, which are about as engaging as a wet sponge.

Currently there is no problem that can’t be solved with overwhelming numbers, part of that is due to the poor design of WvW, and part of that is because your not really given any other options.

-
I remember times in GW1 where I could tank the entire enemy team of 8 or so, as an Ele no less, while my team could capture the objectives. Because it was possible to leverage the odds if your built yourself right. And the odds you can leverage here is much, much less. Putting you in the situation that if you want to accomplish any goal, you simply need more people, tactics and strategy be kitten ed.

Everything is effectively built of 1-on-1 fights, up to about 5 people or so, because Arenanet though they could make an e-sport. Never mind that it doesn’t scale well, at all.

Right so healing someone through a dungeon makes thing interesting huh? Or using CC?
Or are you going to tell me that tanking makes things fun?
See – I can play this game too – what you find interesting other find boring and what I might find interesting or fun you might find boring.

You might find using reflects and might stacking boring and non-engaging – but that’s just you.

The important thing is that now * the game forces neither of us to play in a way they dislike*.

You mention that dungeons aren’t engaging mechanically to new players – but if that’s not the case then what is engaging?

No dungeon mechanic can be considered engaging or fun once you’ve mastered it. There are mechanics there, and if you’re new and undergeared they are a challenge at least to most players. Maybe not to you but that’s not the issue.

The fact that you’re going to adress GW2’s WvW with the mindset of :tank, healer, and dps pretty much shows how much you understand of this game’s system. It also shows what you are used to and what you want to see in the game.

The point I was making is that there’s always going to be a proper ratio of tank-healer-dps. Regardless of this ratio those with greater numbers will always win.

Even if you have more tank or more healer or more DPS it still factors in favorably for your team.

Let me explain : when two teams meet in WvW there are 2 big things that matter for that team if we set aside strategy and control :

-Damage dealt and damage taken.

A team with more of anything – be it tank, healer or dps will still do better because it will either deal more damage or absorb more damage. Either way they’re going to push out more numbers and absorb more of yours.

Again you mention “lazy” mechanics and “boring” fields – that again is just your opinion.
Personally I find this idea of more people collaborating to buff each other more engaging than what I’ve seen in most other MMOs where you simply pres a skill while selecting a target to buff it – much more exciting isn’kitten

Unless numbers in WvW are toned down drastically or people are forced to split ( like the Marionette fight) numbers and coverage will ALWAYS matter more than skill and strategy.

And you’re saying that one person tanking 8 others is balanced?

Axialbloom.8109:

Harper.4173:

How is HS still a problem? it’s already been nerfed. Do you want it to go back to the pre-buff days of 200 hp/s?
When we had no sustain?

There are numbers above 200 but lower than what it is at now, you know…

Yes and those numbers make the skill even worse than the other warrior heals. Which are really bad.

How about we leave HS alone? It isn’t the issue.

I enjoyed the Ready Up and would like to say thanks for doing it.

Arenanet obviously have to be very careful what they say and I think they did a good job of conveying the myriad of factors that makes balance such a nightmare, and sometimes often seemingly unfair.

[edit] (because it is, by design).

Josh Davis.6015:

In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

So the first question asks for how it should and not how it actually is or seems. There are two other systems I know of and the one is the Tank/Healer/DD trinity, the other is a similar one but kryptonite situations compensated by hireling NPCs that follow the player like in GW or DDO.

There is nearly no trinity in GW2 so I won’t tell what the strengths and weaknesses of the professions should be, because it’d end in a trinity-like description.

The second question asks how it is or seems, and in my opinion each professions kryptonite regarding survivability is:

Warrior
heavy dependant on items and traits; no fun to level from 1 – 60 atm

Thief, Engineer, Mesmer
heavy dependant on traits, dependant on utility skills; lvl 36 eases things a little, but only at lvl 60+ the real fun returns

Guardian, Ranger, Necromancer
dependant on traits and utility skills

Elementalist
heavy dependant on utility skills or other players; ever tried to level an Elementalist in Open PvE without the Glyph of Lesser Elementals or Lightning Hammer?

Harper.4173:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

Bri.8354:

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

They don’t balance PVE. Anyone can win in PVE. With anything.
The balance in that aspect of the game is very loose at best.

That doesn’t mean you don’t balance it. You can win with anything, but there’s obviously the optimal things to win with. If you don’t balance that, it goes out of control and everyone just uses one build, which makes the game rather boring.

That’s what happens no matter how much you balance. It’s called creating and playing a meta.
Playing the same thing over and over because it’s the best. It appears not because the game isn’t balanced but because players want rewards quickly.

You don’t just go ‘oh well, it’s the meta’, you keep the meta in constant flux, you create multiple metas each with their different uses in different parts of the game. If you end up with a meta which is perfect in every aspect of the game, that’s a wake up call that you screwed it up.

I just posted a topic on this. My thought on balance is that balance should be entirely focused around the dodge mechanic. Meaning stability and immunity should be removed from the game or severely limited and on very long cool-downs. I am not an expert warrior by any stretch of the imagination but i don’t think that warriors currently need any help other than with there ability to deal with being constantly blind as well as dealing with enemies always being immune to damage, knock downs, knock backs, etc… I really feel like these three items are what is limiting the warrior.

Muchacho.2390:

Josh Davis.6015:

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

I think it would be enough to give most warrior mobility skills a target reqirement. So they could go in a fight an stay on thier targets but not leave at will.

This is the suggestion some of us have been making for months. The skills are intended as gap closers – NOT GAP CREATORS.

Not many surprises but still a nice episode to watch, thanks for taking your time.

I’d like to see a similar talk in regards to “weapon skill balance”.

What is the vision for the weapons. Some weapons seem to have it all, high damage, some CC and mobility.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

For Necro, I would say the weaknesses are a lack of burst ability and a lack of escapes. Situations that force them to “play defensively” should not be kind to them. Strengths should be very potent active sustain (it is the designated “attrition class”) and constant, sustained pressure while being very resilient to the same.

This comes from Necro’s lore position as practitioners of Aggression magic. If you don’t stop a nero from being aggressive, he should be the biggest pain you have ever faced.

Right now, what’s really missing is the “active sustain.” It’s on the weak side, primarily because only life force can be replenished with any sort of ease. Real health also needs to be easily restored when built for it.

As an addendum to this, I’d like to see an increase in vampiric style attacks. In GW1, there several skills that directly did this, both over time and directly. Now, only one attack does this innately, the rest comes from traits, runes, and sigils.

Frankly, I’d like to see more vampiric skills and decouple most of it from traits, etc. But I assume that would be too significant a rewrite.

I think Mesmers should be a bit better at CC/anti CC; if necessary, compensate with less damage.

This is coming from a GW1 perspective, but in that game, mesmers DEFINED CC. Hammer warriors aside, mesmers were still the king.

It was a bit jarring to discover that, here, they are not. Far from it. Engineers, warriors, even fear spamming necros can exceed that, especially as the mesmer’s CC abilities are mostly single target, which would be fine if they were also more powerful than things like hammer warriors, but they are not: hammer warriors can generate more CC, and mostly AoE CC, whereas the mesmer lags far behind.

Ok… so I suppose that’s more wanting the old GW1 mesmer back than because it’s really broken, but still.

NathanH.1465:

Thiefs:
- Can jump in and out of combat easily. Problem is that whenever they start losing a battle they tend to stealth and run away.
- They can use their finisher to kill someone when stealthed, but when the necro uses DS he can’t use his finisher? Either prevent stealthed thiefs from using finisher or also allow it for necro’s in DS.

This. Seriously. Thieves can engage at will, and if they don’t like how it’s going, disengage at will. It’s utterly frustrating and unfair – near infinite stealth spamming is bad enough. Only way to keep a thief down is if you happen to be able to spam enough CC to keep him from cloaking, and continue to hammer him down… or with enough conditions he goes down before he can wash them off while in cloak.

Otherwise, he Infiltrator’s arrow away, resets, and comes back while you are NOT resetting.

As for warrior, I agree. warriors don’t really have any weaknesses, and have so many strengths.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Harper.4173:

Bri.8354:

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

They don’t balance PVE. Anyone can win in PVE. With anything.
The balance in that aspect of the game is very loose at best.

That doesn’t mean you don’t balance it. You can win with anything, but there’s obviously the optimal things to win with. If you don’t balance that, it goes out of control and everyone just uses one build, which makes the game rather boring.

That’s what happens no matter how much you balance. It’s called creating and playing a meta.
Playing the same thing over and over because it’s the best. It appears not because the game isn’t balanced but because players want rewards quickly.

You don’t just go ‘oh well, it’s the meta’, you keep the meta in constant flux, you create multiple metas each with their different uses in different parts of the game. If you end up with a meta which is perfect in every aspect of the game, that’s a wake up call that you screwed it up.

And multiple metas are better than one meta in what way exactly?
We now have a popular meta – but not an enforced one.
How are more enforced metas better than being able to complete content with just about anything?

One of the things that always felt off to me about Thieves is that Stealth is not a good defensive tool, which leads to major survivability problems. It functions much better as an offensive one. Shouldn’t it be more balanced? They should probably reduce the effectiveness of a lot of the Stealth attacks and give it some better defensive mechanics.

Also, anyone with a brain can see that warriors do too much too well.

Harper.4173:

Axialbloom.8109:

Harper.4173:

How is HS still a problem? it’s already been nerfed. Do you want it to go back to the pre-buff days of 200 hp/s?
When we had no sustain?

There are numbers above 200 but lower than what it is at now, you know…

Yes and those numbers make the skill even worse than the other warrior heals. Which are really bad.

How about we leave HS alone? It isn’t the issue.

Only the most biased think HS is fine.

as im not really interested in trying to sugarcoat a ranger strength

a rangers kryptonite is it’s pet…

we must rely on if for so much:

-damage ( like 30% ish I believe?)
-CC
-condition cleanse (which actually kills the pet)
-condition coverage
-buffs (either through f2 or swap)

all of which are lost if our pet is dead because of how prevalent AoE and one hit kills are, such as in WvW or high level fractals. The pet cannot dodge in a game about dodging, or avoid said AoE/one-shots without extreme intuitiveness on the players part, with a bit of luck too.

Throw in the fact that pets are sluggish, take a long time to reach a target (loss of dps), F2s are still not 100% reliable, and can barely hit moving targets because of long and very telegraphed skill activations, and you have a recipe for ranger pie.

if you want ranger to have a weakness, don’t make it our game defining mechanic.

side note: also, if were so adept at wilderness survival, why are rangers weak at condition removal? Shouldn’t we be like, the best at it?

Yoh.8469:

• Guardians are probably the most balanced, they have good offense and great defense, but suffer in the range and mobility department. The have a lot of boons/support and condition removal, but very few applications of conditions or boon removal. (not like the last part matters) They don’t really have any dead skills or trait, nor too many bugs, their just about right all round.
  .

• Condition removal is limited and on long cooldowns. A condi spammer such as a necro will annihilate a guardian, as will a condi-warrior (of course).

• Dead Traits: I’ve seen some of the garbage traits on other classes and can confirm that while most Guardian traits are … okay (if not desirable), there’s only two or three builds that any serious guardian will go with (in PvP, WvW or PvE).

• Dead Traits: Take a look at the downed traits: [Revenge of the Fallen] “+50% damage while downed”. Nobody in their right mind would take this trait. Likewise [Strength of the Fallen] “Lose health slower when downed”.

• Dead Traits: Then there is the myriad of wasted Spirit Weapon oriented traits and the skills to go with them : [Wrathful Spirits], [Eternal Spirit], [A Fire Inside], [Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration]
  ^So thrown-together was this last one that they didn’t even think of a fancy name for it.
  Dead Skills: [Bow of Truth] [Hammer of Wisdom] [Sword of Justice] [Shield of the Avenger]. They were crappy before they got nerfed, now they are obsolete.

Is it any wonder that the most popular trait line is the one with no spirit weapon traits on it?

• Dead Skill: Merciful Intervention: This is horribly bugged – you just teleport to the nearest piece of furniture or hillside. If it were a desirable skill, this would be a sad thing but it’s not.

• Dead Skills: Signets: Aside from Signet of Resolve, they’re simply not good enough.

I’ll leave it at that, but as you can see, there’s plenty to work on and Guardians aren’t quite the perfect class Arenanet made them out to be.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nike.2631:

So, do folks feel Warriors would have condition counters more proportionate to the trait cost if Cleansing Ire cleared only one condition regardless of adrenaline ranks when a burst skill is used?

So it would read like~

“Cleansing Ire: Using a burst skill removes 1 condition.”

I’d say leave it as it is now, but give it a good ICD to bring it in line with other active cleanses. It’s not exactly a passive trait, (at least, that part isn’t) so why treat it as such?

Actually it would for trait value probably only clear up to two very specific conditions as it would be viewed similar to, fleet of foot, stop drop and roll and evasive purity?

Axialbloom.8109:

Half the professions cannot remove boons.
Adrenaline is a massive bonus.
Warriors are the kings of condition removal thanks to Cleansing Ire.

The devs were completely reaching when they created these fake weaknesses for warriors.

Well, they did say that’s where they want them, not where they are.

Also, first point is only half true; half of the professions cannot remove boons untraited, Guardians can pick up a trait that lets them remove a boon every time they apply burning. With all the fun tools necros and mesmers have, Thief’s S/D 3 and Boutiful Theft, and the Engineer’s Mines and Acidic Elixirs, that leaves “only” Ranger, Elementalist and Warrior as the only professions that have no way whatsoever of removing enemy boons outside of Nullification Sigils.

This whole thread started with a quote from the devs about how one class shouldn’t have everything. I just can’t see how that can be rationally claimed with the current state of affairs. A large number of the classes offend against this creed with the warrior being the prime example.

I’ve got all 8 classes at 80 and played them all equally in WvW and PVE (not sPVP) and the only classes where I really feel I am making a build “choice” with associated tradeoffs and my playstyle changes in response to that build choice is Ele and Engineer.

(I must admit I have never played my ranger as a defensive build so I could be missing something there).

The remaining classes either have no significant choice, no need for choice or a single meta so strong it makes choice pointless.

LordByron.8369:

balancing 1vs1 is the key to balance multiple formats also.
Its way better than balancing around a silly concept like capture the point.

Okay I’ve been playing Hearthstone a bunch and I think this is mildly relevant.

Some decks give certain other decks a really hard time. This is just a fact. You have to deal with it when you’re laddering. But by that very same caveat, your deck kills certain other decks without a problem. You’ll end up with 50/50 wins, and that’s balanced.

I think that it’s really far fetched to expect any game, up to and including MMORPGs, to have meaningful balance on a 1v1 basis. It’s possible to try to perfectly balance a game for 1v1, but for a game of GW2’s size, it would be a project of unimaginably huge scope to balance- if it’s even possible. Being able to reframe the question sidesteps this entirely.

That’s not to say that 1v1 balance isn’t good. It sure is, and if it’s possible to whack a mole, it should be done, but placing perfect 1v1 balance as a realistic ultimate goal is counterproductive.

Also yeah Cleansing Ire should be grandmaster. Maybe swap its place with Spiked Armor.

Not that hard..

It just takes the same approach like fighting games with few differences.
This game already has quite similar skills.

You have “healing” signets
You have telports
You have movement skills

And so on.

Just try to make them more coherent, and then give some weaponsets/professions, more efficience on few just to give profession identity.

Don’t design OP traits that just ruins the balance, just stick to skills and make traits less important.

Last patch was a step in the right direction, remove some trait/stat focus to put in runes and sigils.

Also there is an easy way to balance a game:
Frequent balance changes

Oh yeah, we definitely need more frequent patches. I know some games (DaoC comes to mind) were criticized for this, never allowing anyone to get to grips with a class before moving skills around again.

But here, we have the opposite issue. Classes get “stale” due to how long it is before something changes.

Anyhow, I don’t think Fighting Games are a good source for balance input. Fighting Games embrace their imbalances. Actually hrm, come to think of it, maybe they are the perfect example for how to orient your smallscale MMORPG balance:

• Embrace the imbalance.
• Accept the imbalance.
• Work on unique perks of each character/class/spec so that someone can and will try to get good with it.
• Allow these underdogs to have their 1-2 moments of glory via specific combos or skills, weak as they are outside of that.

This could translate well into MMORPGs. Classes would need to be incomplete (dependent on others, TF2 shows this to a near-perfect degree), and then have specific powerful elements which are unique to the class, and very easy to notice in PvP and PvE.

Carighan.6758:

Oh yeah, we definitely need more frequent patches. I know some games (DaoC comes to mind) were criticized for this, never allowing anyone to get to grips with a class before moving skills around again.

But here, we have the opposite issue. Classes get “stale” due to how long it is before something changes.

Anyhow, I don’t think Fighting Games are a good source for balance input. Fighting Games embrace their imbalances. Actually hrm, come to think of it, maybe they are the perfect example for how to orient your smallscale MMORPG balance:

• Embrace the imbalance.
• Accept the imbalance.
• Work on unique perks of each character/class/spec so that someone can and will try to get good with it.
• Allow these underdogs to have their 1-2 moments of glory via specific combos or skills, weak as they are outside of that.

This could translate well into MMORPGs. Classes would need to be incomplete (dependent on others, TF2 shows this to a near-perfect degree), and then have specific powerful elements which are unique to the class, and very easy to notice in PvP and PvE.

Worth while, carefully thought out patches; that (for example) don’t nerf hammer the fun out of particular class/classes or make them fundamentally useless (e.g. ranger) within high tier pvp.

I also reckon that customization should also be discussed considering how much has been taken away since release within pvp.

Svarty.8019:

• Dead Skill: Merciful Intervention: This is horribly bugged – you just teleport to the nearest piece of furniture or hillside. If it were a desirable skill, this would be a sad thing but it’s not.

• Dead Skills: Signets: Aside from Signet of Resolve, they’re simply not good enough.

No Merciful Intervention isn’t bugged. If you are partied, the skill will prioritized the member with low health. If you have no party it seems to teleport you randomly to someone.

In regards to signets, yea they can be better. I’ve been intentionally using them for the past couple weeks and I hate them but I can see good things about them. Signet of Resolve and Judgement are good, the best ones. Weakness is a great condition in pvp…less in pve.

When it comes to bane signet and signet of wrath, things get strange. Their cast times are too long, making the skills to clunky. What is worse is inscribed renewal….its like a stripped down pure of voice which is cool.

BUT BUT, how does it make sense to remove one condition with the trait when you use signet of mercy. It has a 3 sec cast time and a 150sec cooldown. So it takes 3 secs to remove ONE condition? It should be all and give you immunity or something lol. Inscribed renewal has terrible synergy with signet of mercy and to a lesser degree bane and signet of wrath.

Josh Davis.6015:

And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

Warrior didn’t get the memo.

Thief S/D too much damaged with survivability they have.

Bunker condition builds – good effective damage paired with good survivability

Bunker guardians – too strong compared to other bunkers, doesn’t require attacking enemy in order to survive(especially bad on legacy mid point, just run in circles) – negates some mechanics (confusion, ele auras, retaliation, reflects)

Nutshel.7264:

Josh Davis.6015:

And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

Warrior didn’t get the memo. – AGREED

Thief S/D too much damaged with survivability they have. AGREED

Bunker condition builds – good effective damage paired with good survivability. TOO MUCH SURVIVABILITY FOR THE LIMITED TRADE-OFFS

Bunker guardians – too strong compared to other bunkers, doesn’t require attacking enemy in order to survive(especially bad on legacy mid point, just run in circles) – negates some mechanics (confusion, ele auras, retaliation, reflects) MOSTLY AGREE

“We also presented what we feel the strengths/weaknesses of each profession was, and sort of our long-term high-level goals for balancing.”

Could someone please elaborate on what the devs presented for their “long-term high-level goals for balancing”?

Rangers should be the highest single target ranged DPS in the game. That’s a high level goal. They mentioned various things for a lot of the classes.

Atherakhia.4086:

Rangers should be the highest single target ranged DPS in the game. That’s a high level goal. They mentioned various things for a lot of the classes.

I’d say actual design reflects Mesmer as that role. Ranger at it’s strongest (in actuality) is a condi-resistant, high evasion mid-range fighter.

Pretty far from the high level design… until Longbow is like, a must have, that high level design will pretty much never be congruent with how the Ranger plays.

Chaith.8256:

Atherakhia.4086:

Rangers should be the highest single target ranged DPS in the game. That’s a high level goal. They mentioned various things for a lot of the classes.

I’d say actual design reflects Mesmer as that role. Ranger at it’s strongest (in actuality) is a condi-resistant, high evasion mid-range fighter.

Pretty far from the high level design… until Longbow is like, a must have, that high level design will pretty much never be congruent with how the Ranger plays.

They said it, not me. If it were expected to reflect reality it would have been a 7 class expose.